


One of the Few

by tinyagentscully



Category: MSR - Fandom, The X-Files
Genre: High School AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-06
Updated: 2016-09-06
Packaged: 2018-08-13 05:44:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7964710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinyagentscully/pseuds/tinyagentscully
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fox Mulder is a simple believer who gets caught in a time unlike the present. In a dystopian world, he has to make a choice between believing and disappearing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> This is dedicated to my friend, Ez, who always pushes me to complete my works.

        A boy with dark, shaggy brown hair walks down a barely-lit street at three in the morning. He snuck out of his house a couple of hours before, with no motive except to try and clear his head. He pulls on the strings of his hoodie to tug the hood tighter around his head. It was colder than he’d been used to, usually having to wear tank tops and shorts due to the sweltering heat of Florida. He could’ve gotten into his parents’ car, but he preferred walking the streets. It gave him a greater sense of freedom and clarity. He rummages through his pockets before pulling out a cigarette and-

“ _Oh, you gotta be fucking kidding me,_ ” he thinks to himself, his breath becoming a cloud for a moment from him groaning before disappearing again, “ _you bring a pack of cigarettes and forget to bring a lighter with you? Smart move, Mulder._ ”

Mulder sighs and puts the pack of cigarettes back in his front pocket, and scoffs at the fact that he could remember to bring a pen, paper, his phone, and cigarettes, but no lighter. He continues walking down the dim street until he stumbles upon an old treehouse, mainly only a patio in a tree with railings, left behind by some family who had to move away. He walks closer to the treehouse, realizing that it isn’t that old after all, just abandoned. He decides to climb a thin wooden ladder to the treehouse, and brush away some leaves on the floor so he can lay down in the center of the structure. He smiles at the view from where he’s lying, just above him was a clearing of branches in the tree, just enough to see the sky perfectly. Mulder stays like that for a while, silently listening to the world around him while he stargazes.

“Hey, spooky, you can either make some room or leave, but I found this spot first.”

Mulder sits up and yells, surprised by the voice breaking the silence behind him. The voice chuckles at his reaction, popping their head up more so they can see the boy better, and Mulder sits up more to do the same. The voice is a girl around his age, with long-ish red hair, and, from what he can see, brown eyes. Mulder moves over for her and she climbs fully up the ladder before sitting across from him.

“So, are you gonna tell me your name, or should I just call you ‘spooky’ for the rest of the night?”

Mulder gives the girl a small smile and sees that her eyes are actually blue, with tiny specks of grey in them. She’s wearing a white t-shirt with a logo on it, black skinny jeans, and some beat-up Vans she must’ve just slipped on. He stops staring as he realizes he hasn’t answered her.

“Oh! Sorry. My name’s, uh, Mulder. What’s your name?”

“It’s Emily. So tell me, what kind of a name is _Mulder_?"

"A last name. Better than my first name, which is Fox."

Emily lets out a stifled laugh and gives the boy a look of sympathy. Having a name like that has got to be terrible, like everything else in this sorry excuse for a world. 

"So tell me, spooky, why are you here? Are you against The Few or are you one of The Few?” She raises an eyebrow and focuses on the logo on his maroon hoodie, which is the same one on the back of her shirt, and goes back to looking at his forest green eyes.

“I just needed to clear my head, I guess. I usually climb my roof but- wait,” Mulder replies, raising his eyebrow back at her, “one of _The Few_? What do you mean, one of _The Few_?”

“Spook, don’t play games right now. You know what I mean, now tell me how you got here and stayed alive.”

Mulder sat silently for a minute, looking at Emily like she was insane. And she was in that moment, to him. He tries to figure out what she means but can’t come up with an explanation. “ _I swear I only walked less than a half hour to get here… and I’ve only been here an hour. What could’ve happened, and why does she seem so on guard? Why would I be one of The Few, and what even is it?_ ” he thinks to himself, looking at the ground as if the cedar floor would hold the answers. He looks up to see Emily looking at him with her brows furrowed, like she couldn’t possibly understand how he was confused.

“Are you telling me that you don’t know what’s happening? That you don’t understand the attack? I’ve seen you before, Mulder. I know I have. Stop pretending none of this exists, okay?”

“I don’t! I’ve never even seen you around school! Whatever you think I know, I don’t. So please, just tell me what the hell you’re talking about.” His face becomes more worried than frustrated, his voice becoming nothing but a mumble. “The attack? What happened, Emily?”

She sighs and looks around, thinking for a moment before standing up. “C’mon, then,” she pauses and holds out a hand, “let’s go. I’ll show you.”

 


	2. Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fox Mulder is a simple believer who gets caught in a time unlike the present. In a dystopian world, he has to make a choice between believing and disappearing.

        They walk for at least ten minutes, Emily holding Mulder’s hand and leading him to their destination. The walk is silent, with an occasional “ _SHH_ ” from Emily. They finally arrive and Emily lets go of Mulder’s hand as he backs up slowly and gasps.

His school, less than fifteen minutes from his house, is in front of him destroyed. The building looks like it’s been set on fire and then demolished decades ago, ash and soot covering the debris left. Yet, in the exact center of the courtyard that used to be where he sat, patiently waiting for the first bell, there was a perfect circle of grass, tall and green, with a perfect x in the middle of it, like it was never set on fire. Never destroyed. Emily, without speaking, puts a hand on Mulder’s shoulder and pulls up his hoodie sleeve, revealing a perfect and intricate circle with an x in the center tattooed on his wrist. He pushes her away and looks at his skin, scratching it frantically, hoping it will come off. He eventually stops clawing at his skin and sits down in defeat around the circle of grass beside Emily.

“M-my family… what happened to my family? My sister, Samantha?” Mulder asks with his voice cracking. He looks up at the girl sitting next to him, searching for any answers in her eyes, tears filling up in his own.

“The adults were the ones that attacked. Wherever they are… they’re far away from here. That’s a good thing, Mulder. They wouldn’t recognize you.”

“What do you mean, wouldn’t recognize me?! I’m their son, they’d remember their own son.”

Emily sighs again, trying to find the right words to say, and places her hand in his, pausing before explaining.

“Fifty years ago after the United States fell apart, the government placed most of the states under Martial Law, and from there the attacks started happening. It started off as a few fatalities around different cities, kidnappings, nothing that didn’t happen before this. But then the kidnapped started returning, all of the adults taken were suddenly back, and, my god… it was horrible, Mulder. Not all the adults came back, and the ones that did seemed to only have one agenda- kill the ones who weren’t abducted. We started calling them The Lost. Parents killed their own kids, brothers, sisters, anyone. It didn’t matter who you were, you were at risk if you weren’t one of The Lost. That’s when The Few started up. You see, we were de-humanized. Split apart into four clans; The Lost, which you know about. The Few, who were the kids who survived. Any person that was under 23 and wanting to start a revolution that would save us became one of The Few. There were about 1,000 of us in total here. There’s only 300 now due to death and the upcoming clan. We’re all marked with a perfect circle with an x in the center of it. Then there were The Spineless, an unforgiving army first made out of the military, eventually turning into a clan of the survivors who betrayed The Few to make sure they stayed alive. They’re still out there, even though the military is long dead, they keep their task alive by attempting to eradicate The Unlost, aka everyone else. There’s about 500 of them left. Their logo is a star that’s crumbling apart. Finally, there’s The Hopeless. The Hopeless are a small group of vandals who try to be Robin Hood, stealing food and supplies from The Spineless for themselves, and they’re the closest thing we got to an ally. They’re marked with two arrows side by side. They’re not to be messed with, though. Unless we’re both threatened by The Spineless, they don’t care about us. Only about 50 out of the 200 of them are full-allies with us. We finally got rid of the official clan of The Lost about ten years ago, and I think… I think that’s where you come in. Mulder, I think you might be the traveler The Few have been waiting for.”

Mulder sits quietly for what feels like an eternity, taking in the information that Emily just gave him.

“H-how… how am I here and 17 then? I was just at my house and the U.S was still intact and there was no sign of Martial Law.”

The girl simply nods and continues.

“I think you’re the traveler we’ve waited for. There were always these… prophecies. They said that a traveler would come from the past and be able to rewrite the future, someone who could change the way things turned out. That’s you, Mulder. All the prophecy says is to find the traveler and give him the one thing he forgot… and I’m still unsure of what that means.”

Mulder looks at her bewildered, trying to fully absorb everything that’s been presented to him. He hands her the pen, paper, phone, which is shattered, and pack of cigarettes, fully emptying his pockets. “That’s all I’ve got on me.” Emily nods and inspects the items, visibly confused herself. She grabs the pen and paper and writes a note, crumpling it up and putting it in her pocket. She opens up the pack of cigarettes and sees that he doesn’t have a lighter.

“The one thing you don’t have… is the one thing I do.” she says with a surprised laugh. She hands him the lighter and they share a cigarette, talking for a while about what needs to be done.

“Well, apparently all that needs to happen is you bringing something from the future back to the past and that single thing can change what happens. I hope it works.”

“I do too, Emily. I really do.” Mulder replies, trying to understand. He's the biggest believer in most things, but this? This is near impossible to believe. He wants too, though. He needs to.

They stand up to go back to the treehouse when a noise comes from the bushes.

“GET DOWN!” Emily screams, pushing Mulder to the ground. He looks up paralyzed in fear as a single gunshot rings out and Emily drops to the ground. All he sees is a single man with a star on his shoulder running away.

“Oh my god, Em, what do I do? What do I do?!”

Her breathing is shallow and she uses all of her strength to take the note out of her pocket and hand it to Mulder, her hand shaking. He takes the paper and holds her hand, looking at her and breathing fast.

“Emily, I’m not leaving. I can’t.”

“Don’t open this until you’re back home, okay? Promise me.”

“Em… I ca-”

“I said promise me, Mulder! Please.”

Mulder sits there for a moment, tears streaming down his face as Emily continues to breathe raggedly, the time in between them getting shorter and shorter. He finally nods and a faint relieved smile comes over Emily for a moment, her mouth barely opening.

“Run. Run and don’t stop until you get back to your home, spook. I’ll.. I'll be okay.”

All he wants is to fight her, but her eyes seem to tell him that it’s not the end, and he gets up and presses his forehead against hers.

“I’ll fix this. I will.”

His feet have never moved faster than in this moment, his breath ragged and his legs hurting. He runs the whole way home with tears streaming down his face. He has to fix this, for Emily. For the future, apparently. By time he reaches his yard he drops, blacking out on the way down. He wakes up the next day, greeted by his blaring alarm clock. He jumps up, scared and confused. “ _It was just a dream?”_ he thinks to himself, not sure what to do. He decides to just get ready for school and walks there, seeing it standing perfectly, with kids in the courtyard and adults smiling. He goes to light a cigarette before realizing he forgot his lighter again. He rummages through all of his pockets until he feels something in his back one; a lighter, and a piece of paper. His stomach drops as he pulls out the lighter first, seeing it’s the same rusted one that Emily handed him. Choked up and anxious, he pulls out the note and reads it.

On a crumbled up piece of paper, scribbled carelessly in blue ink, there is a note that says:

_Mulder._

_Rewrite the future, and please don’t screw this up. I had to leave you faster than the smoke in your lungs, and I’m sorry for that. It was foretold in the prophecy, which is the one thing you can’t change. You’ll know what to do, and I hope we meet again. Just remember that we look familiar to each other._

-  _Emily Scully_

The shaggy haired boy smiles, tracing over her name. He didn’t know her last name until now, and he wasn’t quite sure what she meant by the final sentence, but he felt a sense of relief. Walking into class, the teacher calls out roll.

“Fox?”

“H-here, Mr. Skinner.”

“Dana... Dana Scully?”

Mulder sits straight up, looking around him for the girl. When her hand raises, he gets a good look at her. She looks oddly familiar to him; like someone he’s known before. When she looks over at him, she smiles, her blue and grey-speckled eyes meeting his. He seems familiar to her as well, although she’s almost sure they’ve never met. She looks back down and continues doodling an intricate circle, with an x in the center, still smiling from the familiar stranger. For some reason they both feel a sense of relief at the same time, as if something in the universe corrected itself.


End file.
